Then I realized she might be thinking what had just occurred to me: if a crazy fan really did have something to do with the murder – and while I admit that having the police suspect my brother made me biased, I still thought the fans were logical suspects – then maybe the police should check them out. Only I'd just chased the craziest of them all away, instead of trying to sic the police on her.
Oh, well. Odds were she'd be back tomorrow. In fact, if she didn't show up again fairly soon, that would be even more suspicious.
Dr. Lorelei finally found her voice. “I didn't leave the door open,“ she said. “I was just as surprised and shocked as you were to find it open.“
“Really,“ I said.
“I came down to meet a patient who's having a crisis,“ she said, glancing again at the door. “I need to let him in when he arrives.“
“If you mean Randall, he managed to find his own way in, and he seems to be over his crisis, so I sent him home.“
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if not sure what to say. “I don't know what you're thinking,“ she began.
Actually, from the look on her face, she'd probably already figured out what I was thinking. I'd have to ask one of my therapist relatives to be sure, but I had a pretty good idea that having an affair with a patient would be a first-class violation of Dr. Lorelei's professional ethics. Not to mention a violation of ordinary human morality – Randall was married, and so was Dr. Lorelei, unless the ring she wore on her left hand was some kind of camouflage to deflect the romantic fantasies of her patients.
But I wasn't mean enough to say all that. Okay, maybe I was mean enough, but something more interesting occurred to me instead, and I decided to take a wild chance.
“Is that what Ted was blackmailing you about?“ I asked. “Your affair with Randall?“
Bull's-eye. Even with just the flashlight beam for light, I could see her flinch.
“He wasn't blackmailing me,“ she said. “I mean, he tried, but I told him off. I never paid anything. Why should I –? I'm not having an affair. I'm having a small problem with a patient who has become obsessed with me, true, but I'm working that out.“
“And meeting him here at one A.M. was part of working it out?“ I asked, checking my watch.
“I should have known you'd assume the worst,“ she said, drawing herself up and turning on her heel.
“Doesn't much matter what I assume,“ I said, to her departing back. “Be interesting to hear what Chief Burke makes of it.“
Maybe it was my imagination, but I think her shoulders fell a little as I said that.
I watched as she crossed the lobby and disappeared down the stairway.
I'd guessed correctly – Ted had tried to blackmail her. Wasn't there an entry for The Valkyrie on his list of targets? That would fit Dr. Lorelei perfectly. But did this have anything to do with his murder?
Perhaps not, if her reason for showing up here was as innocent as she would like me to think. Then again, maybe even the appearance of an ethics violation would damage her career – especially her brand-new national radio show. And if she really was having an affair –?
Whether or not she was having an affair wasn't important, though I admit I was curious. What mattered was whether or not she'd kill to protect her professional reputation and her growing fame as the star of
Maybe I should be glad she left quietly.
Maybe I should have stayed in hiding instead of confronting her. And speaking of hiding – I checked the box in the coat closet and found it full of pink Affirmation Bears. So Dr. Brown would receive tomorrow's complaint about people usurping shared space for personal use. Or maybe I should focus on the safety angle – if a fire broke out and I reached into the closet, I wanted to put my hands on the extinguisher, not a fuzzy pink cheering section.
Should I wrestle the box into her office now? No. For now, I was going to make myself a copy of Ted's blackmail list, so no one would see me doing it in the morning, and leave it at the reception desk, with the keys. And then crawl around with the blick light, studying the mail cart track. The bears could hibernate where they were until morning, when Dr. Brown was available to move them herself.
I strolled through the opening and turned right, rounding a corner and walking down the north hall, which led, eventually, to the copier room.
And then I saw something down the hall and ducked into a nearby cube.
I peered carefully out of the cube. I'd seen someone in the computer lab. During the daytime there were always people in the lab, of course; even at midnight, which it very nearly was, seeing someone working late would not be odd – but this someone was sitting in the dark.
I'd never found out why, unlike the rest of the office, the computer lab had floor-to-ceiling glass walls. I didn't find the view of a large room full of hardware that aesthetically pleasing, but maybe I wasn't the intended audience. Maybe to the technically oriented, it was a symphony in plastic, metal, and silicon, a tone poem in black, white, gray, and beige.
Or maybe it was a security measure, so no one could easily get up to any kind of sabotage. Anyone who walked down the north corridor could see everything that was happening in the lab.
And anyone in the lab could see anyone who walked down the corridor.
I peered carefully out of the cube where I was hiding. My eyes were more adjusted to the dark now, and the flicker from several monitors gave enough light for me to recognize the occupant of the lab.
It was Roger.
He was making CD-ROMs. “Burning“ them, as the guys said. Mutant Wizards had several CD burners in the lab, so the programmers could make a small quantity of CDs when they wanted to get people to test new versions of the game. As I watched, Roger punched a button on one of the CD burners. The drawer slid open. He removed the CD inside and put it on top of the inch-high stack of CDs beside the burner. Then he took a fresh CD from a stack to his left, placed it in the holder and pushed the drawer back in. His fingers flew over the keys for a few minutes, and then he sat back, clasped his arms behind his head, and went back to watching the various monitors and CD burners.
Of course, it was always possible that he had some legitimate reason for being there. Doing some urgent task related to the new release. And that he hated the fluorescent lights and preferred to sit in a room lit only by the glow of the monitors. And found it more convenient to sneak in the back door, rather than through the front door, where I'd have seen him. But still…
I ducked back into a cube and looked around. Luis's cube, I noticed. I rifled the papers by his phone and, as I'd hoped, found a copy of the emergency contact list. Roger was on it, and, more important, his work, home, and cell phones were listed.
I called his cell phone. After a couple of rings, he answered. “Yeah?“
“Roger!“ I exclaimed. “Thank God someone's got his phone on; I've been ringing people for fifteen minutes. Listen, you live pretty near the office, right?“
“Right,“ he said.
“Is there any chance you could do me a big favor and drop by the office really quickly?“
“Why?“ he asked. Not mentioning, of course, that he was already at the office, which anyone who was here for any honest reason would have said right away.
“I left Spike in his cage in the downstairs hall,“ I improvised. “Rob was supposed to pick him up, but I can't reach Rob – I'm beginning to worry that the police have taken him in again, and I don't want to abandon Spike there all night if Rob didn't have a chance to pick him up. Could you go over there and take a quick look?“
“Yeah, I guess so,“ he said. “Hang on.“
I heard some tapping noises through the phone, and then a door opening and closing as he left the computer lab. I waited until I heard the same noise again, this time from the reception area, and then I ran back to the
